A fictional autobiography of conjoined twin sisters Lily and Rose, in which they describe navigating life and romance in a non-conjoined world.
Part 4 includes the following chapters:
Chapter 9: Triplet from a another mother
Chapter 9: Triplet from another mother
Simultaneous with getting our stuff moved over to Nick’s place was the Christmas holiday season. For the first time in our lives, we wouldn’t be spending Christmas with our own family. Nick had spent Thanksgiving with our family, so it was only fair that we spend Christmas with his. There were more family members present than we had met previously, so we were meeting some of them for the first time. Some had clearly been informed of our, uh, uniqueness, and others either had not or hadn’t believed it or understood it when they were told. The latter group was amusing to watch as they suddenly realized just what we were. We took no offense, because we knew we were safe and they weren’t trying to be mean. Every one of them stammered out an apology and tried hard to be gracious after that.
Especially endearing was Nick’s four year old niece Mia. Young children are innocent and curious and don’t know about manners, so they call them like they see them. We especially enjoy conversations with such cuties, at least the ones who aren’t afraid of us. Mia kept peering around corners and from behind furniture and watching us, until we’d notice her and smile at her, and she’d dart away, also with a smile. After a few times, we called her name and asked her to come out and meet us. It took a few tries before she worked up the nerve to show herself.
We kept smiling and saying her name and motioning for her to come to us. Finally she spoke. “How come you have two heads?” Again, we took no offense. It was an innocent and sincere question. But her mother, Nick’s sister-in-law Ashley, heard her and swooped in. “Mia Abigail Spencer! That is so rude of you! You apologize to them right now!” Mia started to cry. She had no idea what she had done wrong. I, Lily, tried to comfort Mia while Rose dealt with Ashley. Sometimes there are advantages to being conjoined. I said to Mia, “That’s all right, sweetie. You didn’t do anything wrong. Come here and let’s talk.”
Meanwhile, I, Rose, tried to get a word in edgewise as Ashley apologized on Mia’s behalf. I said to her, “Ashley, Mia didn’t know any better. It’s all right. It was an innocent question and we’re not offended. Let her talk to us, okay? We’ll gladly answer her questions.” Ashley relented, and I also turned my attention to Mia. Ashley backed off, but closely monitored our interactions with her daughter from across the room. “Come here, baby. We’re not mad at you,” I said. She just stood there a few feet away with her hand over her mouth, intently watching us and trying to decide if she could trust us.
I, Lily said to her, “You see, we’re two different people, so of course we each have a head. My name is Lily, and this is my sister Rose. The real question is, Why do we only have one body?” Mia said nothing and just kept watching us. Then I, Rose, elaborated as I gestured with my hand. “This side is mine, and the other side is hers. God made us stuck together like this.” Mia worked up the courage to ask another question.
Mia: Did it hurt?
Lily: Did what hurt, sweetie?
Mia: Did it hurt when God stuck you together?
Lily: We’ve always been stuck together, so no, it didn’t hurt, and it doesn’t hurt now.
Mia: Why did God stick you together?
Rose: We don’t know why. But we don’t mind; we like being this way.
Mia: You’re both pretty. And nice.
Lily: Why thank you, Mia! You’re pretty and nice, too.
Rose: Would you like to be our friend, Mia?
Mia: Yes.
Rose: Well, good. I’d like to be your friend, too.
Lily: And so would I.
Mia came closer and held Lily’s hand.
Mia: (to Lily) Can you feel that?
Lily: Yes.
Mia: (to Rose) Can you feel it?
Rose: No.
Mia then released Lily’s hand and took Rose’s.
Mia: (to Rose) Can you feel this?
Rose: Yes.
Mia: (to Lily) Can you feel it?
Lily: No.
Mia: You are two girls stuck together!
Mia then ran excitedly to her mother. “Mommy! Lily and Rose are two girls stuck together!” she said as if she were the first person in the world to realize this. “They’re really nice, too!” Mia added. Ashley said to her daughter, “I know, dear. Now why don’t you leave them alone and go play now?” Mia then scampered off to go find a cousin to play with.
Ashley then came over to us. She said, “I want to thank you for how you dealt with that. You were very kind to Mia. You seem to have made a friend.” I, Rose, replied, “She seems like a sweet girl. We didn’t mind her questions. Kids that young are naturally curious, and almost never are they intentionally offensive.” Ashley then said, “Well, you helped me understand you better, too. I really didn’t know quite what to make of you, either. So you’re what? Siamese twins?”
I, Lily, took that question. “That’s the term most people know, but it’s neither accurate nor politically correct. The proper term is conjoined twins, but either way, yes, that’s what we are.” Ashley looked mortified. “I’m so sorry; I didn’t know!” I replied, “Relax, Ashley. You don’t have to walk on eggshells around us. We can tell when someone’s being intentionally offensive, and neither you nor Mia were, so we’re not bothered by it. We realize most people have never encountered anyone like us before.”
Ashley visibly relaxed. “So, you’re both in a relationship with Nick, or just one of you?” “We both are,” we said in unison. “Forgive me, but I’m just trying to get my head around this. How does that work?” We both laughed. I, Rose, lowered my voice and explained. “We have just one set of lady parts between us. We can both feel everything down there. We dated different guys in middle school and high school when it was just holding hands and kissing. But as adults, that just won’t work.”
Ashley replied, “It sounds really complicated being… conjoined, is it?” I, Lily, replied, “It can be at times. But it’s the only life we know, and there’s no changing it, so we just deal with it as best we can.” “So, I assume you can get pregnant and your children would be… normal? Is it offensive to say ‘normal’?” We laughed again. We were taking turns answering Ashley’s questions, so I, Rose, replied, “Yes and yes. And we’re not bothered by the word ‘normal’. We really don’t use it ourselves, though, because to us, we’re normal and everyone else is strange. We say ‘non-conjoined’ or ‘singletons’ to refer to normal people.”
“So, one more question and then I’ll stop embarrassing you,” Ashley replied. If you have a shared womb, how could you tell which of you is the biological mother?” I, Lily, fielded that question. “It would be impossible to know with a natural pregnancy. Since there are two ovaries, one is mine and one is hers, but there’s no way to know which one the egg came from. Since we’re identical twins, our DNA is completely identical. The only possible way to know would be to get pregnant via in-vitro fertilization. Then, we’d know which side they’d taken the egg from. We probably wouldn’t want to go to all that expense and trouble, though, just to know which of us was the biological mother. I’m sure we’d both consider ourselves mothers to any child we had, whether we knew or not.” It might be better if we didn’t know.
Ashley then said, “I guess I lied when I said that was my last question. Who would you put on the birth certificate as the mother then?” I, Rose, replied, “That’s going to be huge can of worms that we’ll have to deal with. We would both want to be listed as the birth mother, but we’re sure they wouldn’t just let us do that. We’d probably have to win a lawsuit to make that happen. We’re going to have the same problem when we’re ready to marry. We’ll have to fight for the legal right to be wives to the same man, whether that’s Nick or someone else. We’ve already talked to a state senator and civil rights lawyer about it, and we know it won’t be easy.”
“Does Nick know all this?” asked Ashley. I, Lily, then said, “Yes, he knows. He’s like us – we’ll cross those bridges if and when we get to them. If we decide we want to spend the rest of our lives together and we can have a legal three-way marriage, then great, but if we can’t, then we’ll do it another way.”
“Wow, I had no idea how the deck is stacked against people who don’t fit the mold,” Ashley said. “Well, in all fairness, conjoined twins are extremely rare, and those that share a reproductive system are even more rare than that. So it’s no surprise that there are no accommodations or exceptions for us, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to say it can’t be done and just give up.”
“Why don’t you start working on getting things changed now?” asked Ashley. “Our senator-lawyer friend told us that no politician would touch a bill to change those laws with a ten foot pole, especially the one about marriage, so it would have to be done through the court system. But the courts won’t hear a case until you’ve actually been harmed by the law. So we’d first have to try to get a three-way marriage license and be turned away, or have a baby and not be allowed to put both our names on the birth certificate, before we could file suit.”
“Well, I wish you luck. I agree, it’s not going to be easy, but nothing worthwhile ever is,” said Ashley. “We wouldn’t necessarily say that. Being with Nick has been pretty easy.” Just then, Nick’s mom called everyone to dinner.
Mia came running in and said, “I wanna sit next to Lily and Rose!” Ashley said to her, “Sorry, Mia, but you’re at the kids’ table with your cousins. “Lily and Rose are sitting with the grown-ups. You can talk to them after we eat, okay?” “No! I wanna sit next to them!” Mia yelled to her mother. This was going to get ugly fast, so we intervened. We got down at Mia’s level and looked her in the eye. “Mia, sweetie,” I, Lily said to her, “we want to talk with the grown-ups for a while, but we promise, we’ll do something fun with you after dinner, okay?” Then, I, Rose, added, “Besides, you can’t sit next to both of us at the same time anyway. It wouldn’t be fair.”
Mia considered what we said, and asked, “You promise?” “We promise,” we said in unison. She came in for a hug, carefully positioning herself so we could both feel it. “Thatsa girl,” I, Rose, said. “Now go with your mom, and we’ll see you later.” And then she did. Ashley looked back at us and smiled and gave us the ‘okay’ sign. It occurred to us both that we’d already made two friends, and the day wasn’t over.
We had a pleasant enough time visiting with Nick’s family that day. Of course, several of them asked the same questions that Ashley, and it seems, everyone asks, but that’s fine. After we ate, we got on the floor and played with Mia as we had promised. When we were getting ready to depart, Ashley wanted to exchange phone numbers with us, which we were happy to do, and she gave us a big hug and told us she really enjoyed getting to know us. Mia gave us another big hug and told us she loved us. Of course we reciprocated. We really felt like we had formed a bond with Ashley. It was a shame that we didn’t live closer.
A few days later, Nick told us that Ashley had contacted him and told him that she really, really liked us, that we were ‘keepers’, and he was very fortunate to have gotten into a relationship with us. She told him he better not do anything to mess it up, because he’d regret it for the rest of his life. We thought that was a pretty strong endorsement, considering that we’d only spent a few hours with her.
A couple of weeks later, we received a text from Ashley.
Hey girls. U def made an impression on Mia. She talks abt u every day. Her preschool teacher sent me a msg saying she’s concerned bc Mia keeps drawing girls w/ 2 heads. Lol, I wonder where she got that idea
Fwiw you made an impression on me 2. We’d like u and nick 2 come spend a wknd with us soon. Pls let me no when is good 4 u
We cracked up about the preschool teacher. We both thought we ought to go introduce ourselves to her; no doubt her reaction to seeing us would be priceless. We told Ashley we’d talk to Nick and get back to her.
We brought it up with Nick and he said, “Do you get the impression that Ashley is trying a little bit too hard to be friends with you? It seems like it to me, especially when she almost threatened me not to screw up our relationship.” We exchanged a glance with each other and replied, “Yeah, a little bit. She seems nice enough, but it does seem like she latched onto us a bit too fast.” Nick replied, “I’m going to talk to Mike and see if he can shed any light on this. Don’t tell Ashley I’m talking to him about her.” Mike was Nick’s older brother and Ashley’s husband.
Later, Nick told us about his conversation with his brother. “Mike said he didn’t think it was anything for either him or us to be concerned about. He said he wasn’t surprised, and he thought he knew why, but it was Ashley’s story to tell, not his. He encouraged us to accept Ashley’s invitation, and he’d encourage her to share her story with you while we’re there. It still seems odd to me, but I trust Mike.”
So we discussed which weekends were good for us. We asked Nick if he could take a Friday off work. We told him about Mia’s preschool teacher and that we wanted to try to meet her while the preschool was still open on Friday afternoon. Nick cracked up just like we did, and thought it would be hilarious to show her why Mia was making those drawings. Nick knew he’d have no trouble taking a Friday off, as did we, so we got back to Ashley and worked things out. She loved the idea of introducing us to the preschool teacher.
Ashley arranged for a parent-teacher conference with Mia’s teacher late on that Friday afternoon to discuss Mia’s artwork. The ones that had concerned the teacher had tapered off, but had resumed with a vengeance once Mia had learned we’d be coming to visit her. Ashley mentioned that she wanted to bring someone with her to the conference, which wasn’t a problem. We show up at the front desk, and we got the typical shocked reaction from the woman there. She quickly escorted us to the assistant director’s office, who reacted similarly. The assistant director went to Mia’s classroom to tell her we were here and to cover her classroom for her. Ashley asked her not to spoil the surprise by telling the teacher what to expect.
We were seated in the office in the opposite corner along the same wall with the door, where we couldn’t really be seen until the teacher entered the room. Ashley was between us and the door. The teacher walked into the room with a stack of Mia’s artwork, greeted Ashley, and went behind the desk when she finally really looked at us. She stopped mid-sentence and looked like she had seen a ghost. All she could manage to do was to say “Oh, my,” as she slowly sat down without taking her eyes off us.
Ashley then took control. She said to the teacher, “I’d like you to meet Mia’s uncle’s girlfriends, Lily and Rose Barrett.” I, Lily, extended my (right) hand and said, “Hi, I’m Lily,” and the teacher held out her hand as she continued to stare. After they had shaken hands, I, Rose, then extended my (left) hand and said, “Hi, I’m Rose.” She similarly offered her right hand to me and we did an awkward wrong-handed handshake. I, Lily, said, “Obviously, we’re the inspiration for Mia’s drawings.”
Ashley then went on to explain that Mia had met us at a family gathering at Christmas and had very quickly bonded with us. She told the teacher that Mia frequently talked about us at home and was very excited that we were coming to visit her this weekend. The teacher stammered out something about now understanding why Mia had made the drawings and that, in context, it was completely normal and natural for her to do that.
The teacher gathered her composure enough to ask a question. She said, “Mia was very insistent that her drawings were not of a girl with two heads, but as she put it, ‘two girls stuck together,’ which I found even more disturbing. Can you explain that?” I, Rose, fielded the question. “She’s repeating what we had told her about ourselves. We are not one girl with two heads; we’re conjoined twins; two distinct people who share a body. Half of our body is Lily’s and half is mine. We explained it in a way a four year old could understand, that we’re two sisters who God had made stuck together.”
“That makes perfect sense now that you’ve explained it,” the teacher said. “From how Mia said it, I was imagining something like Frankenstein, two people cut in half and sewn to each other. I thought maybe she had been watching horror movies or something.”
Ashley said, “Would you mind if we had Mia join us? I’d like you to see her reaction to Lily and Rose. I can go get her or you can.” The teacher volunteered; we didn’t think she wanted to be left alone with us. She brought Mia back with her, and as soon as she saw us, her face lit up and she ran to us and gave us a big hug. “Aunt Lily! Aunt Rose! I missed you so much!” she said. She then climbed onto our lap and appeared very content. Obviously, Ashley had coached her to call us her aunts, which we found endearing.
The teacher then said to Ashley, “I can see this was all just a big misunderstanding and nothing at all to be concerned about. I’m sorry to have troubled you.” Ashley replied, “No, it was perfectly reasonable that you were concerned, and I’m glad you brought it to my attention. I would be, too, if I didn’t know why she was doing that.” The teacher then said to us, “I’m sorry for my reaction when I first saw you. As startled as I was, I’m glad you came to see me in person. It really cleared things up for me.” We replied, “We’re used to reactions like that; we’re surprised when someone doesn’t react that way. No apology necessary, and we’re glad we could help.”
We and Ashley had a good laugh about the teacher’s reaction as she drove us and Mia back to their house. We had fun speculating how she would have reacted had we come in there all indignant that she had a problem with Mia’s artwork. But we’re too nice; we could never have done that for real.
The next day, Saturday, Nick and Mike went golfing, leaving us with Ashley and Mia back at the house. While Mia was busy playing, Ashley sat down with us and said she needed to tell us something. “Mike said Nick told him that all three of you were sensing that I was trying too hard to be your friend and were wondering what to make of it. I suppose that’s true. Mike said I needed to tell you why, and he’s right; I do.
“Almost no one knows about this besides my parents and brother and Mike, and I don’t want it to go any further. You see, I was supposed to be an identical twin, too. My twin sister was stillborn; her umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck and it cut off the blood supply to her brain during birth. My parents were going to name her Abigail. Not a day goes by that I don’t mourn her. My entire life I’ve felt this emptiness, this gaping hole that should have been filled by her presence.”
As she said this, Ashley began to cry, and we were only a few seconds behind her. Ashley continued through her tears. “When I realized that you’re not only identical twin sisters, but that you can never, ever be apart from each other, it just made me so happy for you. I’ve always wished that Abigail were alive, but now I also wish that we were conjoined like you. I know that’s impossible, but I suppose I’m thinking I can somehow experience it vicariously through the two of you. Does that make any sense at all?”
All three of us were blubbering messes by now, and we both instinctively reached out our arms to wrap them around Ashley in a big hug. We all held on for dear life as we bawled together. Then Mia entered the room, surveyed the situation, and asked why everyone was crying. I, Rose, simply told her, “Your mom just told us something very, very sad.” What did she tell you?, Mia wanted to know. Ashley composed herself enough to answer. “Mia, honey, it’s much too sad of a story to tell a four year old. Maybe when you’re older, I’ll explain it to you.” Mia didn’t challenge this, but she joined us in our group hug, trying to comfort all three of us.
“Mommy, when I’m sad, you tell me to think of happy things. That’s what you need to do, too. Think how much you love me and Daddy.” Ashley started laughing while still crying. “From the mouths of babes,” she said to us. “You’re right, honey, I do need to think of that. It’s already making me feel better,” she said to her daughter as she hugged her extra tight. “And I’m also thinking of how much I love Lily and Rose.” That just made the two of us cry even harder. After hearing her story, we couldn’t help but love Ashley, too. After a few minutes, Ashley said to Mia, “Mia, you go back to playing now. We’ll be all right. Thank you for comforting us.”
We said to Ashley, “We always think how incredibly lonely it must be to not be conjoined. But to be a twin without ever being able to see or touch or hug your womb mate, that’s just heartbreaking. We can’t even fathom how alone you must feel.” Then, I, Lily, said to Ashley, “I’m going out on a limb without talking to Rose first, but we almost always think alike. We would be honored to adopt you as our triplet from another mother.” “Yes!” Rose said. “I agree completely!”
That set off another round of hugging and crying, loud enough to get Mia’s attention. She returned and said, exasperated, “Now why are you crying?” Ashley replied, “Now we’re crying because we’re happy. Very, very happy!” Mia folded her arms and shook her head. “I’ll never understand grown-ups!” she said, as she returned to her playroom.
When Nick and Mike returned from golfing, we were all in the kitchen together, with the adults preparing dinner and Mia sitting at the table coloring. Nick asked, “So what did you girls do with yourselves today? Anything fun?” Mia answered, “Oh, no, mostly they just cried all day,” as she tilted her head toward the three of us. Nick gave us a puzzled and concerned look, but we just smiled back at him, indicating that everything was fine.
On the drive home on Sunday, Nick asked us about our time with Ashley the previous day. “Ashley had a very good reason for latching onto us. We completely understand now, and we’re fine with it. We really became close with her and we love her like a sister,” we said, being deliberately vague.
“So what was the reason?” Nick asked. “Sorry, but we can’t tell you what her issue is. It’s deeply personal to her. She asked us to keep it to ourselves. Very few people know about it and she wants to keep it that way,” we replied. “But we can tell you the reason she latched onto us is because she knew, correctly, that probably nobody could understand the emotional pain she’s been through, and will always be going through, better than the two of us. So we essentially told her we’ll always be there to support her.”
“I gather than it was very emotional for all of you, based on what Mia said about you crying all day,” Nick said. “That it was,” we said in reply. “But it was a good kind of emotional. We cried tears of profound sadness, and tears of empathy, and tears of happiness.” “Well, as long as you’re okay with it, and with her, I guess I don’t need to be concerned about it,” Nick then said. “We are, and you don’t. Thanks for not insisting that we tell you anything more,” we said.
Chapter 10: Conjoined comedy
Remember our first date with Nick? We do. He took us to a comedy club, and then suggested that we try doing stand-up comedy some time when they had open mike night. At the time, we thought the idea ludicrous, but over the months the idea grew on us. We started trying out jokes on each other. Of course, all of them had to do with being conjoined in a singleton world. Eventually, we thought we had enough material, and enough nerve, to actually give it a try. So we picked a night, made sure Nick was free, got there early, and signed up. We didn’t preview our act for Nick; we wanted him to hear it for the first time at the club so we’d get his genuine reaction.
They guy at the club taking open mike sign ups looked at us like he couldn’t decide if we’d be a hit or a bust simply based on our unique anatomy. To be honest, we didn’t know, either, or whether our jokes would make any difference. When we were introduced, the applause was polite until we got up to where most people could see us, and then it stopped rather abruptly as they went into shock. But we were committed at that point, and so we just dived into it.
Lily: Hi, I’m Lily.
Rose: And I’m Rose.
Lily: We’re conjoined twin sisters. That means we share a single body, as you can see. She controls her side, and I control mine.
Rose: Hey, wait a minute, Lily. You told me this was going to be “conjoined twins night”. The entire audience is all singletons.
Lily: (to audience) Singletons are what we call non-conjoined people. (to Rose) It’s conjoined twins night because we’re here, silly. Have you ever met another set of conjoined twins? I haven’t.
Rose: No, but I was hoping to tonight.
Lily: (to audience) We’re a ventriloquist act. She’s the dummy.
Rose: (indignant) You take that back!
Lily: We used to be a magic act, but we didn’t realize our own power and then this happened.
Rose: I was trying to make Lily disappear. I still wish she’d disappear, but I kind of need her now.
Lily: All kidding aside, we’ve been this way our entire lives. People tell us they couldn’t stand never being alone, but it’s all we know, so we don’t mind. That is, until Rose starts snoring. There’s no escaping it! I’m trapped!
Rose: It’s no fun for me, either, when you start with your incessant hiccups!
Lily: But really, we love being conjoined. We recently started dating again after a long break. We used to each date different guys, but this time we’re sharing the same boyfriend. We like sharing better. The poor guy doesn’t stand a chance against us. We have him outgunned, two brains against one.
Rose: He seems kind of shifty, though. We want him to gaze into our eyes, but he just can’t maintain eye contact. His eyes keep darting back and forth, from left to right.
Lily: Another shortcoming is that he insists on only kissing us one at a time. Doesn’t he know a girl doesn’t like to be kept waiting? We just don’t understand singletons sometimes.
Rose: And speaking of clueless singletons, you probably don’t want to get in line behind us at the movie theater. They can never decide whether to charge us for one ticket or two. The person selling tickets doesn’t know what to do, so they call the manager over. The manager has no idea, either, so they pore through the procedures manual together looking for an answer. I mean, we’re just two girls sharing one body. How hard is it to figure out?
Lily: We’ve never flown on a commercial airline. You can imagine how hard that would be, trying to buy one ticket for the two of us. I’m sure they’d make us buy two.
Rose: We should travel with a morbidly obese person on a plane with three seats per row. That person could buy a ticket for one seat from the airline, and a second seat from us.
Lily: I like the way you think, bodymate! Now all we need to do is find a really fat person who wants to go to the same place at the same time we do, before they buy two seats from the airline. How hard can that be?
Rose: We have the hardest time finding clothes like tops and blouses and dresses. We go into a store and ask where they keep the clothing with two neck holes, and they just stare at us like we have two heads or something.
Lily: We do have two heads, Rose.
Rose: Oh, I suppose we do. I guess that would explain the stares. But it still doesn’t explain why they don’t ever carry tops with two necks.
Lily: (to audience) See what I mean about us being a ventriloquist act?
Rose: We got pulled over by a cop the other day. He asked for our license and registration. We gave him our two driver’s licenses and the car registration. He asked which one of us was driving. Great, another clueless singleton. Of course we were both driving and we told him that. He said he’d have to give both of us tickets for speeding. I said, Wait a minute. Only Lily controls the gas pedal. You can’t give me a ticket because she’s a speed demon. My foot was on the floor minding its own business.
Lily: We were both driving, Rose. We should both get a ticket.
Rose: That’s easy for you to say, leadfoot. I told him, she should get the ticket for speeding, not me. So he has us get out of the car. He says to Lily, Shake your right foot, and she does. Then he says to me, Now you shake your right foot. Of course, I don’t have a right foot, so I did nothing. But before I could tell him that, this one here (gesturing to Lily) shakes her foot again. And so he gives each of us a speeding ticket.
Lily: I thought it was pretty funny!
Rose: You see what I have to put up with? Now I have to go to traffic court to fight the ticket. But the problem is, I can’t get there unless Lily cooperates. She controls the gas pedal!
Lily: (gives a loud, evil-sounding laugh)
Rose: (to audience) You’ve been a great audience! Thank you very much!
Now there were some laughs at some of the jokes, and somewhat reluctant applause at the end, but we both knew we died out there, to use the vernacular of the trade. What we didn’t know was whether the audience was too shocked at seeing conjoined twins to even listen, or whether the jokes were really that flat. That’s why we wanted Nick there, hearing the jokes for the first time, to give us feedback on the jokes themselves. Of course, some of the jokes were based on conversations we’d had with him, so it wasn’t completely new material, either.
Really, though, we did this just to have some fun and as an experiment, and so by that measure, it was a success. It was fun to plan it, if not so much to deliver it, and now we knew not to quit our day job. We’d bombed, and the reason(s) didn’t really matter much. But we still wanted to know what Nick thought of the jokes and delivery. We asked him to be completely honest, but he was clearly trying to avoid hurting our feelings. That was telling in itself, so we didn’t press the issue. Our career in comedy was over as soon as it began.